


Enough

by AParisianShakespearean



Series: Dragon Age One Shots [15]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Cullenlingus, F/M, First Time, Loss of Virginity, Smut, sensual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 09:46:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14054238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AParisianShakespearean/pseuds/AParisianShakespearean
Summary: Shirael wonders if she's enough.





	Enough

**Author's Note:**

> Shirael belongs to @angyvalentine on tumblr :)

_I won’t want to move on. Not from you._

He said that. Cullen said that. When the battle was over, he would not leave her side so long as she wanted him near.

Before she had thought of losing him. Only briefly. The creators knew too how sometimes she dreamed of him, corrupted by the red lyrium. Always she woke from those nightmares with tears streaming down her face. After the first few, that’s when she knew. No. She couldn’t lose him. Not now. Not ever. She thought it was always so obvious. She would do almost anything for him. Sit by him when he went through his withdrawals, never let him go if she had to. It was written in everything she did.

He broke his gaze from her, going over to his desk. She called his name, broke the distance between them. Her hand met with his on the desk.

“Do you even need to ask?” she muttered.

Sometimes he doubted. It was what made them take so long to share their first kiss, but when he looked at her, gaze trailing over her body, he knew. He should never have doubted. He should have known.

No. He didn’t need to ask.

Shirael gasped when she heard it—the sound of a discarded wine bottle falling and shattering, the last few dregs of wine staining the stone floor. She didn’t so much as even breathe before it shattered. Not when Cullen said I suppose not, realizing that everything Shirael did, she did for him. Yet the glass shattered, and with it shattered all his insecurities and doubts. Then she was climbing on top of the desk, both Cullen and instinct leading her. His tall, heavy body pressed into her. Lips met and parted, tongue gently sweeping over her bottom lip. He moved his hips against the juncture of her thigh. This was where it would be then, their first. She didn’t, know, would it be right? Would…

“You’re shaking.”

Was she? She didn’t realize, not until she glanced at her hand. She didn’t really know what to do with her hands during times like these, and awkwardly her fingers fisted through the fur of his mantle. He was right. She was shaking.

A gloved hand caressed her cheek. Gently it swept over Mythal’s vallaslin, over her pointed ear. “We don’t have to,” he said. “If you don’t want to, we don’t have to. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that, act too over eager…”

“It’s all right,” she promised, lifting her head up, kissing his nose, the easiest place to reach. Long ago she told him that she never laid with someone before, never so much as had been romantically linked with another. He did not judge her then, and he did not judge her now for not wanting it now. He understood when she said that these things held a certain weight in her life. She wanted him, yes. Eventually. Soon. But she wasn’t sure she could…perform.

There it was again, that subtle yet irrational fear that persisted. The fear of not being any good.

“Sleep with me,” he whispered to her. “Only sleep.”

She loved that, having him on top of her, and the thought of laying with him in his bed became enticing. She nodded, eager and practically bouncing on her feet, turning a slight shade of red as he led her up the ladder. She had been in Cullen’s room before during one night of pain from his withdrawals, yet this still felt so new to her. She felt a shiver. The whole night was ahead, a whole night of simply being with him. It would be paradise.

Turning, he gave her privacy to dress and slip into his bed. Stripping, she slipped into the sheets. She wore only her breast band and smalls, and when Cullen slipped alongside her, shirtless and only wearing a pair of breeches, her red cheeks darkened further.

“Shirael, if you’re…”

“No,” she murmured, inching closer to him, the long line of his body pressed near hers comforting, and thrilling. She assured him she wasn’t embarrassed. She was only happy.

“I’m happy too.”

She fluttered as he stroked her hair, kissed her cheek. He deserved to be happy, and loved. She did too. He told her so, a thousand times.

He rubbed gentle circles around her back as her hand tentatively traveled down his chest. This too was all a bit new. She expected scars, and there were a few here and there, and she traced them with her hands as she felt the strength of his abdomen and chest. Her hand sank a little lower, to the golden patch of hair that disappeared underneath his breeches. They kissed slowly, eventually moving to their sides. They entangled.

It was all so much. She spun, floated. Fell. Their heartbeats synchronized. She felt it–his want for her, pressed into her hips.

More.

She asked him for more. He wanted to be sure, and asked her if she was certain. Her answer was another long, hungry kiss.

“It’s only,” she whispered to him, that one thread of shame still refusing to be cut. “I’m not certain I’ll be any good.”

“Shirael.”

“But what if…”

“Shhhh.” Tenderly he kissed her forehead. “No more talk of that.”

She had an idea “Teach me,” she said. “Cullen. Teach me how.”

He wasn’t the only one that taught that night. Like the Winter Palace, where he asked her to dance and the two of them learned together how to sway to the sound of a lute, that night in his bed, they learned together how to love each other. He explored her body, gave her his mouth. He learned where to draw patterns, where to caress with his tongue, where to kiss. He learned how to use his mouth to bring her over the edge. And in turn, she taught him with her moans, sighs, and pliant legs draped over his back, how to make her feel exquisite.

She learned what it felt like to have him inside her.

A long sigh escaped her lips. She was full, so full. He tried to withdraw, accompanying it with a litany of apologies. She didn’t want apologies. She wanted him. He shifted above her, and that little movement invoked a craving, a need for him to move. His willpower broke, and there was a wave of gentle thrusts accompanied by kisses and caresses. His hand moved, drifting between their bodies, drawing circles at her clit. Again she came, a softer end this time. That end brought her his confession. It brought her his I love you.

His face was nestled in the crook of her neck. He didn’t see how the tear streamed down her face. He loved her. He loved her. He wanted to spend forever with her. Her first, and her only.

I love you too wasn’t enough.

She felt the pulsations. Instinct told her he was close. He tried to pull away, but she beckoned him to stay.

“Stay,” she whispered, “Cullen, stay.”

“Always.”

It meant more than what it meant then. She knew that as he came, warm inside her. She was covered in his sweat, filled with the evidence of their lovemaking, and she was stained with tears. He wiped them away, concern mounting. He worried he hurt her.

“You didn’t hurt me,” she promised. “No. Cullen. I’m so happy. You’ve made me so happy. But I don’t know how to tell you that. I don’t know if ‘I love you’ is enough.”

“It will always be enough.”

She wasn’t sure if she believed him that night, even as they continued to kiss and caress, and murmur sweet nothings to one another. Yet she realized that just as they had a lifetime of teaching each other and learning various ways to love one another, she would have a lifetime of Cullen telling her it was enough.

But maybe enough wasn’t the right word. How could something that was more than she ever dreamed about be called enough?

“I love you,” Cullen told her again.

“I love you too,” she echoed, and as she continued to tell him that night, eventually, something happened with the words. Eventually, they began to encompass some of the overwhelming happiness Cullen gave her. And what they didn’t, she gave with her kiss and touch. More than enough. More happiness than both ever thought they would have. And they would never take for granted how wonderful it was.


End file.
